


Fratellino

by featherbow12



Category: I Medici | Medici: Masters of Florence (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bromance, Canonical Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24082159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/featherbow12/pseuds/featherbow12
Summary: "Giuliano is your little brother. And as the elder, it is your duty to look after and protect him. Always. Can you do that, Lorenzo?""Yes, Grandmother, I will. I promise."It is many, many more years before he understands the weight of his vow.
Relationships: Giuliano de' Medici & Lorenzo "Il Magnifico" de' Medici
Comments: 16
Kudos: 54





	Fratellino

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for canon violence and MCD

When Giuliano is born, he does not stop crying for weeks. Lorenzo has never met a louder human in all four years of his life, nor a fussier one, for Giuliano cries when the wet nurse feeds him and when Grandmother regales him with stories and when Mother rocks him to sleep in her lap. He even cries when Grandfather visits his room one afternoon—Lorenzo knows because no one ever cries before Grandfather, not even Bianca, and she’s a _girl_.

Uncle Carlo tells him that’s just what babies do, but Lorenzo secretly thinks if anyone could make babies change their ways, it would be Grandfather.

* * *

Nearly a month after baby Giuliano enters the world, the house is completely quiet. Grandmother leads him into Giuliano’s room with a firm hand between his shoulders, dismissing the nurse tending to his brother with a small smile before depositing him in Lorenzo’s arms.

His eyes are so blue. It’s the first thing Lorenzo notices. The second is that he is so, so small.

“I don’t want to drop him,” he says quietly, too afraid of moving the wrong limb to do more than stare back into the eyes looking up at him. So _blue_.

“You will not,” she says, in that special tone which is both stern and kind. Lorenzo is used to hearing it, enough that much of his fear melts away.

He shifts just slightly so that one hand is free to move, and rests a finger on the tip of his brother’s nose, pausing. Mother usually—touches Giuliano’s face somehow when he’s swaddled in her arms, but he can’t recall exactly what she does. Still, it doesn’t feel awkward to simply _be_ with him this way, not when those big blue eyes watch him calmly like maybe what he’s doing is actually okay.

“He’s very taken with you,” Grandmother says, and his heart soars at the happiness in her voice more than her words. She’s sad much of the time, Grandmother, when she thinks nobody can see, and he’s pleased to make her happy. “Do you know why I called you to spend time with Giuliano today, Lorenzo?”

He shakes his head, distracted for a moment when Giuliano makes a sort of gurgling sound before quieting. He hopes that isn’t the start of another week’s worth of crying.

“I do not know who will be the head of this family after your father, Lorenzo. But whether it is you or not, Giuliano or not, whether the Medici bank is dissolved before either of you are old enough to run it or not, Giuliano is your little brother.”

He knows that, Mother told him months ago and again once Giuliano was born, but even at four he can hear the weight in Grandmother’s words. This is important.

“And as the elder, it is your duty to look after and protect him. Always. Can you do that, Lorenzo?”

“Yes, Grandmother, I will.” She’s still watching him carefully, like maybe he doesn’t sound sure enough, so Lorenzo adds, “I promise.”

She leaves him alone with Giuliano after that, and maybe under her orders, maybe by luck, nobody disturbs them for over an hour. In that time, he learns that his brother likes having his left foot tickled with the barest scrape of Lorenzo’s nails, that he hardly ever blinks, and that he smiles big and wide when Lorenzo makes funny faces.

When the wet nurse eventually comes in and takes Giuliano into her arms, he’s almost scared.

_Giuliano is your little brother. It is your duty to look after and protect him._

“Don’t drop him,” he says seriously, trying for the sort of commanding tone that Grandfather does so well, because she doesn’t seem at all worried about that, jostling his little brother around with just a single arm for support. Doesn’t she see how small he is, how fragile?

He doubts he did the commanding tone well because the nurse smiles at him, and that’s not the usual response to Grandfather. But—

“Of course, Messer,” the nurse says, and she’s still smiling, but now she’s promised, too, and that’s good enough for him.

_I will. I promise._

It is many, many years before he understands the weight of his vow.

* * *

Francesco Pazzi falls to his knees, and Lorenzo feels nothing. He’s empty. Every part of him that was ever bright or kind or _good_ lies dead on a cathedral floor, and what’s left is little more than an empty husk of rage and twisting, blinding guilt.

He gives them a chance to confess because that’s how he was raised, because once upon a time he trusted Francesco as a brother— _more_ than his brother, even—and if there’s some way to make sense of what happened, some way to justify it, he’d like to hear it from the lips of the traitor himself.

There isn’t. Francesco doesn’t offer any, and maybe it wouldn’t matter if he did try to explain, maybe it’s even better this way, because there is no justification Lorenzo is prepared to accept for the murder of his brother— _during mass on the Sabbath,_ his mind supplies, although the circumstances hardly matter anymore either.

Giuliano de’ Medici is dead. His little brother is dead, and Lorenzo will _burn_ this city to the ground if that’s what it takes to erase that last, haunting image of Giuliano’s vacant eyes looking up at him, all light and life gone.

Sandro warns him not to do anything he might regret, and if he were a better man, he would listen. As it is, he has a long line of sins to repent, and what he regrets the most— _new family, new life, new brother even_ —is no longer within his power to fix, so this, hanging his brother’s murderers? This will hardly even make the list.

* * *

By the time Lorenzo is fifteen, it is very clear who will lead the family after Father. Giuliano excels in riding and jousting and making Bianca’s friends blush as red as their skirts, but Lorenzo thrums with a banker’s blood and a poet’s tongue. He talks his way out of more than one very well-deserved scolding before Mother wises up to his strategies and stops punishing Giuliano for things his younger brother never did.

“Why do you never say anything?” Lorenzo asks, after a particularly vicious tongue-lashing that was barely a breath away from turning physical. They were saved only by a messenger at the door clamoring to see Madonna Medici. “It wasn’t you.”

 _It_ , in this case, was breaking one of Mother’s favorite vases while roughhousing with Sandro. Giuliano started the fight, sure, but Lorenzo was the one who flailed an awkward arm and caused it to shatter. He didn’t even use his silver tongue to get out of punishment afterward—Mother merely took one look at the three of them and rounded on Giuliano, who was usually the culprit when it came to such carelessness.

Just not this time.

“What do you mean, brother?”

“You didn’t break it. The vase.”

Giuliano arches an eyebrow, and he’s a bit too young to pull off the required balance of condescension and scorn, but it somehow still works. “Really? Did we experience the same last ten minutes, or was I somehow dreaming?”

It’s Lorenzo’s turn to arch an eyebrow. His expression, by the way Giuliano’s shoulders slump in acceptance, _does_ strike the perfect balance. “C’mon, you could’ve said something to Mother. Your silence only made you look more guilty—brother!” He catches his brother’s arm as Giuliano tries to leave. “Talk to me.”

There’s a long pause, and he’s reminded of how _young_ his brother still is when his cool, unaffected façade finally drops. “I just thought—better me than you.”

His breath catches in his chest. “What? I’m the older brother, you don’t need to protect me. That’s my job.” He catches Giuliano’s eyes, only to find that they are positively gleaming, far too bright and fierce for this to be about just pottery. “What do you mean, better you?”

“I’m not an idiot, we both know they’re grooming you to take over after Father. They watch your every move all the time.” There’s no need to clarify who _they_ are—Grandmother, Father, Mother, even Marco Bello—it’s everyone. Everyone in the Medici house. “So perhaps I just didn’t think you needed them discussing your carelessness toward pottery, as well. And how that might translate to you being an equally careless leader of the bank, or whatever other insights they seem to glean from picking apart your every action.”

Lorenzo’s first instinct is to scold Giuliano for speaking that way. If their family watches his every move, it’s only because one day the whole city of Florence will be watching, and he certainly can’t afford to falter then. But he squashes that instinct and goes with his second one instead, reaching out to envelop his brother in a hug. Giuliano seems to resist for just a moment before melting into it, muttering only a token protest when Lorenzo’s hands trail up to ruffle his hair.

As the seconds melt by, Lorenzo relaxes, boneless, mind completely blank in a way that he’s almost forgotten was possible. What Giuliano has offered him—in fewer words, of course, so he can categorically deny it if ever asked—is _privacy._ It’s a strange thing to lack in your own home, but when the reality is that your family is far more concerned with knowing your daily comings and goings than any paid spy, well. Suffice to say it’s a rare thing when he’s not being watched, analyzed, or generally _monitored_ in some fashion inside these walls.

“You are a true friend, brother,” he says, but knows it’s unnecessary. They don’t put much stock in words, anymore—no one knows better than a Medici how easily words can be twisted to charm or deceive as the situation demands. It was under this very roof that they themselves learned how to turn words into weapons. But actions, actions always come with a ring of truth, because they cannot be dismissed as empty promises or colorful rhetoric.

Actions are tangible.

It’s how he knows taking the fall for the vase is Giuliano’s way of showing solidarity and offering to help shoulder his burdens, even if only the small ones. It’s how he knows, despite Giuliano’s tone as he spat the words (sharp and cutting, like a polished dagger), that his brother is not actually angry at him or their family, but merely pointing out an unpleasant truth.

So he squeezes his brother’s shoulder nearly hard enough to bruise with one arm, cradles the back of his head with the other, and knows it’s enough to convey the gratitude threatening to burst from his chest. Apart from Mother, no one has ever been able to read him better—Giuliano will hear the message loud and clear.

Sure enough, Giuliano _hmphs_ softly before they separate, straightening and slipping back into the brash, unflappable persona he wears as a second skin.

“Giuliano!” Mother’s voice cracks through the air like a whip. The messenger must not have brought good news, because they turn to see her framed in the archway looking even more furious than she did a few minutes ago. “We did not finish our conversation!”

Lorenzo grins, slowly backing away. “I’ll leave you to it then, brother,” he says, trying to sound at least a little apologetic.

Giuliano fixes him with an absolutely murderous glare in response, and he laughs all the way back to his room.

* * *

Their bodies hang. He doesn’t watch.

The rage subsides just long enough to take a breath.

The guilt does not.

* * *

“‘Enzo?” a small, tremulous voice calls out. It’s barely more than a whisper, but Lorenzo hears him all the same.

There’s a faint pitter-patter of feet on the rug before a single candle comes into view, flickering and casting strange shadows across Giuliano’s pale face.

“What’re you doing, still awake?” Lorenzo asks without expecting an answer, propping himself upright and pulling back the covers so Giuliano can lie beside him.

He has an idea what this is about, but remains silent as his brother sets the candle on the table and climbs onto the mattress next to him. Lorenzo reaches out an arm and maneuvers them around so that Giuliano’s head rests on his chest, one ear squashed against the steady _thump-thump-thump_ of his heart. He knows the familiar, rhythmic sound will drown out whatever is running through his brother’s head enough for him to relax.

After several minutes of sitting together in silence, Lorenzo broaches the topic again. “What’s keeping you from sleep, brother?”

Giuliano is uncharacteristically quiet for another minute before whispering, “Today. With the—the _man_.”

The man in question was a messenger, one of many that filtered through their home these days, who brought news of the latest rumblings in Rome regarding the Pope’s health. That in itself was nothing strange—the strength of the entire Medici bank rested on the papal contract, and knowing His Holiness better than his own cardinals did was just good business.

No, the strange part was this—the messenger arrived at the gates this morning covered in a coating of his own blood, barely enough breath left in his lungs to croak out a few words about the Pope’s condition before he collapsed to the ground. Guards brought him inside to a spare room, but by the time Lorenzo heard the news and hurried there, Mother and Giuliano were already at his bedside.

The messenger grew pale and cold as every last drop of life left his limbs, but Lorenzo remembers how small his brother looked when the physician declared the man dead, how he crouched in the corner of the room and stared vacantly at the unmoving body on the bed like the image wouldn’t leave his mind.

Clearly it hasn’t.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” he whispers back, because some conversations are too heavy, too intimate, not to be conducted in hushed voices under the cover of night.

He knows Mother wanted Giuliano to stay even as the messenger shuddered through his last breaths, wanted him to see the reality of the world that lies beyond the gilded walls of the Medici home, and understands the need for it. When he saw his first murdered man, he was even younger than Giuliano is now. But his brother is meant to be brightness and laughter and boyish antics, not this pale, haunted wisp curled into his side, and it falls to him to fix that.

With Father tormented by another bout of sickness and Mother setting in place contingencies should they need to install or charm a new Pope, the obligation to look after his brother’s welfare is certainly his, but he doesn’t do it just for the sake of duty. He never has.

“What happened to him?” Giuliano asks. “How did he—why was he so hurt?”

“Mother thinks it was a bandit attack.” The messenger died before they could question him, but all the signs certainly pointed to that conclusion. “They’re sadly quite common on the roads in and out of the city.”

Giuliano makes a quiet sound of acknowledgment, although the tension coiled in his muscles doesn’t abate. Lorenzo traces patterns across his brother’s back with light fingers—the flourishing signature he’s working on perfecting, the Medici coat of arms, the first few scattered words to a new rhyme bouncing around in his head—and waits. It’s rare that Giuliano is ever quiet like this, tending to prefer a _speak first, think later_ approach to pretty much every conversation, but Lorenzo takes it as a testament to how deeply the messenger’s death affected him.

“Before you came...” Giuliano is so, so quiet when he finally speaks, enough that Lorenzo strains to make out the words. “The man said—he said—he was in pain. He called out...for his—family.”

Every word is halting and broken in a way that _squeezes_ his heart to hear. Lorenzo feels the hot press of tears against his tunic, feels Giuliano trembling in his arms, before realizing _he_ is shaking, too, at the thought of his little brother having to bear the weight of the messenger’s last plea.

“And I can’t stop thinking about—how he died. Suffering... _alone_ —“

Giuliano breaks off with what sounds like a sob, and Lorenzo instinctively tightens an arm around him until he can feel the knobs of his brother’s spine digging into his palm.

“Stay here tonight,” he offers after several minutes pass in silence, because for all his silver tongue, he knows there’s nothing he can say that will bring a smile back to his brother’s face today. But he can do this—promise his brother that he isn’t alone like the messenger, not tonight, not _ever._ “It’ll be better in the morning.”

He doesn’t know whether it will be, not really, but Giuliano eventually drifts into an uneasy sleep and that’s good enough for now.

* * *

He remembers only fragments of what happened.

Mother’s scream before— _before_ , when his heart still beat steadily in his chest and every breath didn’t burn like hot coals in his lungs—and his split-second hesitation in following her gaze, turning just in time to see the dagger plunge into his brother’s back.

Giuliano holding out an arm, the hilt of his outstretched dagger gleaming, a sort of grim, resolute determination on his face like he already knows what’s coming and has accepted it sometime between being stabbed and deciding to give away his only chance at survival to _him_.

To _him_ , Lorenzo de’ Medici, head of the family and the bank and the city of Florence, but in that moment little more than an older brother unable to do anything but lie helplessly on the floor and watch as his _fratellino_ dies at the hands of the man he welcomed into his home and into his _family_ , the man he embraced on the cathedral steps just minutes ago, the man who turned an olive branch into a blade and buried it where it would hurt the most.

He remembers the moment, frozen in time like one of Sandro’s paintings—the dagger in Giuliano’s stomach as blood spills out of his mouth, a silence ringing in his ears so crushing and heavy it cannot be real. The moment he realizes his brother will die.

And the remembers the moment, seared into his memory too deep to ever forget—his brother’s body splayed on the cathedral floor, blood pooling around it, his hands desperately attempting to save him or comfort him or do _something_ in the few seconds he has left. The moment he realizes that if there is any hope for their family to survive, it lies with him fleeing to the sacristy and leaving his brother behind to die.

Suffering. Alone. Like the messenger who haunted his nights.

He has never hated himself more for anything he’s ever done.

Sometimes Lorenzo is glad he remembers only fragments, because he knows he doesn’t have the strength to bear anything more.

* * *

There are times Lorenzo hates Giuliano’s smart mouth and stubborn streak, how he is quick to anger and slow to forgive, how he whiles away time drinking and chasing after beautiful women who can never be his, but.

For every time Giuliano ruins one of his intricate plans there are dozens, _hundreds_ , of times he indulges one of Lorenzo’s more poorly written verses when they’re both too drunk to sleep, or whispers witty remarks under his breath during contentious Priori meetings to dissipate the tension in Lorenzo’s shoulders, or challenges Lorenzo’s plans because _someone_ has to make sure he doesn’t think himself infallible and nobody has ever stopped Giuliano from saying and doing exactly as his spirit desires.

That’s why Sandro is his brother, Carlo is essentially his brother, Francesco was once (and perhaps will be again someday) his brother, but at the very heart of it all there is Giuliano, his _brother_.

There’s a trust between them, partly from being the only two people in the world who understand what it took to grow up with the weight of the Medici name, but mostly from breaking vases and breaking hearts and breaking bread together every day for two decades with the absolute certainty the other would be there through it all.

It’s why he loses three nights of sleep over the decision to make Francesco Pazzi godfather to his son, but eventually accepts it’s the right thing to do. By all measures that honor should go to Giuliano, but offering it to Francesco strengthens their familial ties and brings him ever deeper into the Medici fold. Whereas he knows he doesn’t need to offer such prizes to his brother in exchange for loyalty—they are bound by blood, and nothing runs deeper than that.

Thinking of his friends and family this way, as political pawns—it sickens him when he pauses to consider it.

He tries not to pause often.

* * *

Long after the funeral, after the fires and riots stop, after every mention of the Pazzi family is rooted out and eradicated, they sit together at the table and eat.

There are too many empty seats, too many losses they’ve borne in such a short time—Giuliano, Bianca, Guglielmo—and no one has the stomach for conversation. He barely has the stomach for food, but forces himself to pick at some grapes and some bread, if only because self-flagellation takes a surprising amount of energy and that’s not something he plans to stop.

_Giuliano is your little brother. It is your duty to look after and protect him._

What would Grandmother say now, if she could see the fate of her family? What would she say if she knew he let his brother die, hiding like a coward while Giuliano bled out beneath the cross for _his_ idealistic notions of peace, _his_ blindness to their enemies’ plots, _his_ steadfast refusal to see beyond his own supposed brilliance?

_I will. I promise._

He stands from the table with a muttered, “Excuse me,” and nearly runs out of the room, hot tears burning against the back of his eyelids.

Someone calls his name, perhaps Clarice, perhaps Mother, but he hardly hears, staggering like a drunkard across the tiles and down the steps before stumbling out into the crisp Florentine air.

The city buzzes around him with a sort of living, pulsing energy, same as it always has, but it’s not enough. It’s not golden-haired and blue-eyed and cheeky, with untamable spirit and unshakeable loyalty, and just as everything else, it is a poor substitute for what he’s lost. Sandro’s paintings, Mother’s reminiscent stories, his own poems—they are all poor substitutes, only reminding him all the more of his failed promise.

Grandfather’s true love, it is said, was the city of Florence, but Lorenzo finds that she is not enough to fill the hole in his heart.

He knows he would burn it all to the ground in the blink of an eye if it meant he could see his little brother one more time.


End file.
